My Mistake
by Fayth3
Summary: GITF angst...because there obviously isn't enough. Doctor's POV


**My mistake.**

There are many things about my life that I regret. When you've lived ten lifetimes and over 900 years there are some things that you look back on in distaste.

"_Can you change back?"_

I regret hating my home because I missed it when I could never go back. I regret taking my planet for granted when it was never a surety. I regret blocking out the voices only to miss them when the silence came.

"_Feels like there's no one."_

I regret changes and decisions that turned my world around when I knew better. I hurt over choices that were never mine to make and it is easy to blame others for things that I chose to do.

I destroyed my home because I was ordered to. I left Gallifrey because I was exiled. I blocked the voices that laughed at me. I couldn't destroy the Daleks because my decisions would affect the universe.

Always someone else's fault; if I say it long enough and loud enough then maybe—maybe—I'll believe it.

"_I fought in the war - it wasn't my fault! I couldn't save your world! I couldn't save any of them!"_

Sometimes it is my fault, sometimes I make the wrong choice and I have to live with the consequences.

An error in judgement—a catastrophic miscalculation; 12 months instead of 12 hours; a bridge where there should be a barrier; a French Courtesan.

Madame De Pompadour.

I regret Reinette.

No, that's not fair. I don't regret her. Reinette was a wonderful woman with a bright spark about her that I lo—adored. She was bright and brash and beautiful, ahead of her time and mature enough not to care.

No, how could I regret meeting such a person?

I regret my reasons for taking to her with such abandon.

See, all I wanted was Rose Tyler, my own little shop girl form London who'd swung into my life and saved me from throwing away another regeneration on something as frivolous as an Auton.

I wanted more than the friendship that I'd tried to fool myself was all we could have. I wanted her in my arms, in my hearts, and in my bed. I promised her that she could stay with me forever and I meant every word; even the ones I didn't say. But she didn't seem to notice that I'd all but said them anyway. Three ridiculous little words that meant so little and yet meant so much.

"_Imagine watching that happen to someone you—"_

I didn't say them.

"_Imagine watching that happen to someone you—"_

A misjudgement that pushed her away.

I had to regain the trust and ground that I'd lost and I wanted to remind her of the differences between me and other men, so I invited Mickey along with us to travel the world and see the things that he could never show her. What I didn't realise was that sometimes their shared history was enough to keep me at bay. They'd talk in an obscure code of 'he said/she said' that I found baffling.

I was jealous and it made me realise how much I wanted her. How much I loved her.

If jealousy could make me do that, then surely it would make Rose realise the same. If she was jealous of me and another woman then maybe that would be the push she needed to say something, do something about this connection between us. Rose would take the step that I was too uncertain to take.

So, I deliberately flirted with Reinette. It was easy; she was beautiful and accomplished and danced well and flirted like she'd been born for it—which she had.

It was easy to make her my flirtation and she enjoyed it as much as I did.

Her first kiss blew me away; but it was the sure, practised kiss of a courtesan, not the sincere adoration of an innocent. We danced and I deliberately strayed too close, getting her perfume on my shirt, pretending to enjoy the party and casually dismissing Rose, even as my pulse leapt at her in danger, my skin crawling.

I let her see my regard and admiration for Reinette.

"_Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, known to her friends as Reinette. One of the most accomplished women who ever lived."_

But I misjudged.

Instead of taking a stand and making a push for me, instead of jealousy making her realise that her feelings for me ran deep and strong. Instead of finally doing something about it, about us; Rose took one look at Madam De Pompadour and surrendered.

Rose gave up without even fighting and it broke my hearts to see it.

"_Why her?_ _You've got all of history to choose from, why specifically her?"_

For the first time in this regeneration I saw the vulnerability behind Rose Tyler and it hurt that she had hidden it from me for so long.

She'd cried on the shoulder of my ninth self. She'd told him/me all about her life and loves and heartache and feelings.

For the first time I realised how superficial I'd been; keeping her at a distance whilst demanding her feelings remain the same. I took but refused to give.

"_Always wait five and a half hours."_

But Rose wasn't the same naive little girl who'd followed me into the TARDIS. She'd grown world-wise and seen how much she didn't know and it had knocked her confidence, and she'd hidden it from me; hidden her pain and her anguish and her resignation and feelings of inferiority under a mask of levity and buoyant friendship.

Rose no longer thought of me as hers and from her first glimpse of a woman that she thought was so much more than her, she laid down arms and handed me over.

"_I want you safe. My Doctor."_

Going back for Reinette was a horrible faux pas which could have been a disaster of epic proportions and I am genuinely sorry that she died. But in my deepest heart I'm glad because it would have been yet another error in my long list.

Sometimes it is my fault, sometimes I make the wrong choice and I have to live with the consequences.

"_No second chances, I'm that kind of man."_

Now, when I flirt with Rose, she laughs it off, thinking I'm joking. When I try to tell her what she means to me, her distance makes me tongue tied and I sound ridiculous.

Rose holds my hand and smiles still but it doesn't beam as brightly or reach her eyes and she never initiates hugs anymore.

"_You just leave us behind. Is that what you'll do to me?"_

Rose Tyler has convinced herself that she isn't good enough for me.

"_No, not to you."_

She's convinced herself that I was in love with Reinette and that she can't possible compare.

She's wrong

My mistake.


End file.
